Looks like it is getting serious, but not without some amount of controversy: Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) has publicly expressed its intentions to start serving ads to its users, and now it has started: Jason Devitt, the founder of still-stealth Skydeck (founder of Vindigo) writes on his blog that he got a notice from VZW about CPNI (CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information...a user’s complete call records...an overview of CPNI is here), where Verizon wants to share these records with third parties, and they need user’s permission for it. What CPNI doesn’t have is names, numbers, or addresses, but everything else.

But in asking permission, it is asking for opt-out: meaning you’re in by default, unless you want out, a practice carried over from the non-wireless world: “Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above.”

And these “authorize companies”, as it describes it: “Our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.” Ridiculous: this will surely come back to bite them...

The full notice PDF is below..RSS readers will have to click through to see/download it:

• Verizon Wireless Planning Ad Alerts; More Services For Prepaid Customers